NOT HAPPY

01.04.12

Romney Slams Obama's Pick

Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP Photo

Mitt Romney obviously has his sights set on the presidency, but more specifically the president. The Iowa caucus winner attacked President Obama’s move to make a recess appointment of former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In a statement, Romney slammed the choice as a representation of "Chicago-style politics and is precisely what then–Senator Obama claimed would be the ‘wrong thing to do.’” The Washington Post explains that the current congressional Republicans have purposely been turning breaks into “pro forma” sessions so as to stop the president from making recess appointments. While Obama technically could have appointed Cordray—or anyone—during the few minutes that lapsed between congressional sessions, White House lawyers instead have deemed the Republican “pro forma” tactic irrelevant and nonbinding, so didn’t bother rushing during the small break. Romney argues that “instead of working with Congress to fix the flaws in this new bureaucracy, the President is declaring that he ‘refuses to take no for an answer’ and circumventing Congress to appoint a new administrator.”